A decade later

Learjet crash that killed golfer put Mina on center stage

Learjet crash that killed golfer put Mina on center stage

October 25, 2009|BY JEFF BAHR, jbahr@aberdeennews.com

The area is quiet now. It looks like any other South Dakota pasture. But 10 years ago, it was the center of America's attention and the focus of the golf world. The pasture, three miles from Mina Lake, is where the Learjet carrying Payne Stewart and five others crashed 10 years ago today. Jon Hoffman, who owns the land, has shown the site to a couple of dozen people in the last decade. Those who visit find a memorial, bearing a Bible verse and the names of the people who died. The marker was cut from a rock that Hoffman's friend, Todd Eilers, found at the crash site. The wives of the deceased paid for the engraving and the cutting of the rock. Hoffman added a layer of cement so that the marker couldn't be stolen and that the weeds would not grow up close to it. Hoffman fenced off about an acre surrounding the memorial, so cattle can't graze upon it. "I consider it a grave site, to be honest with you," says Hoffman, 47. The wife and sister of pilot Michael Kling visited the area, which is south of U.S. Highway 12. So have three members of the family of agent Van Adarn - his mother, her sister and Van Adarn's daughter. Another visitor was the brother of agent Robert Fraley. The plane's journey ended in a slight depression. Fraley's brother, Eddie, found the area beautiful. He told Hoffman that from that spot, everything “goes straight to heaven.” Some of the visitors didn't know Stewart or any of the others who died. They were simply fans of the golfer. About eight or 10 people have left a hat, golf balls or flowers at the crash site. Before the media left, they attached a bouquet of synthetic flowers to a steel post in Stewart's honor. Those flowers lasted for a year or two, before the South Dakota elements carried them away. On the morning of the crash, the plane left Orlando, Fla., bound for Dallas. It crashed at about 12:15 p.m. CST. The other people on the plane were golf course designer Bruce Borland and pilot Stephanie Bellegarrigue. Tom Hopper, who was Aberdeen's mayor at the time, got a call from an official with the Federal Aviation Administration. He told Hopper there was a plane in distress heading in this direction. Based on the FAA's figures, it would be running out of fuel shortly. The FAA official told Hopper “they believed the occupants were deceased, and they were being followed by some jets.” One reason the jets followed was to make sure the plane didn't crash in a populated area. Hopper contacted the other city commissioners and other city officials to let them know. Hopper hoped the journey would conclude in an unpopulated area, of course. But he kept thinking about the families of the individuals who already knew their loved ones were deceased. “They had to deal with that emotional issue, but also knowing and waiting for the jet to crash,” Hopper said. “What a horrible and lonely feeling that had to be. So there were just a host of issues that everyone had to deal with.” After the plane crashed, Hopper was swamped by calls from national reporters. One woman asked him what a slough was. She pronounced the word as “slow,” rather than slew. Hoffman and his brother, Blake, were with a group of hunters from Texas. The two brothers arrived at the site about 40 minutes after the crash. Then-Gov. Bill Janklow and many others were already there. Tom Kessler saw the plane crash. He was, coincidentally, with Jon and Blake Hoffman and the group of pheasant hunters less than a mile away. Hunting is noisy, with the sound of voices and movement through the grass. Kessler knows those noises didn't really subside. But for an instant, as the plane went down, it seemed quiet. At the time, Kessler hadn't heard anything about the runaway plane, so he didn't know who was in it. He knows it didn't take a direct path to the earth, but “from my angle, it was going straight down.” Later, the family of the crash victims flew Kessler to Orlando to testify in a lawsuit. In the hours after the crash, satellite trucks invaded the pasture. Tents went up. "It was like a little town," Hoffman said. CNN probably stuck around the longest, photographing the workers as they dug items from the site. Eilers led a crew that spent months sifting through the rubble. Stewart's widow, through the lawyers, asked Hoffman who would be a good person to search for personal effects. Hoffman suggested Eilers. Among those who helped were Bob, Eileen and Kenneth Wherry of Faulkton. In November, they piled all the dirt on a side hill before the ground froze. The following spring, after the ground thawed, they did the main portion of the job. They set up three wooden tables near the crash site. Using a small skid steer loader, they deposited the dirt and other materials on the tables and scanned them with a metal detector. The workers kept at it until about July. It was a gruesome task. “The smell of death was pretty evident around there,” Eilers said. It was a once-in-a-lifetime job. “I don't know if I'd care to do it again, but I suppose I would because of the way I was raised.” The crew searched for the personal belongings of Robert Fraley, at the request of his widow. The law firm of Speiser Krause was also looking for materials to help build a lawsuit. The workers found Fraley's driver's license, but never located his wedding ring. “His was the only wedding ring that we did not find,” Eilers said. All of the items they found were very small. An employee of the National Transportation Safety Board told Eilers that to create so many little pieces, you could take a crystal goblet and “throw it as hard as you possibly could against a concrete wall.” Nothing found was intact, Eilers said. The workers would find the bow from a pair of eyeglasses, and “later on we'd find the glasses.” They also found coins. “They looked like they'd been shot at a wall. They were bent in the shape of a Z.” All of the golf clubs were bent. Paper money was shrunk, probably by kerosene in the jet fuel. Even though the job was difficult, it was nice to be able to help people from out of state, Eilers said. That's still, he noted, what local people do best - take care of others. The lawyers, he said, were shocked that the bill he presented them with was so low. Hoffman enjoyed meeting the people he's hosted over the years. “It's been an interesting ride these last 10 years. I've met a lot of really neat people.” The widows he's dealt with, he said, are very religious people. He has received a number of cards from the widows. Dixie Fraley, who never traveled to the site, “was just a sweetheart,” Hoffman said. Interestingly, golf is Hoffman's favorite sport. He has a 13 handicap, and was a fan of Payne Stewart's. If he'd lived, the golfer would now be 52. Hoffman has not met Tracey Stewart, but someday he intends to. He knows she will meet with him. Eilers, who grew up with Hoffman, has a lot of respect for the way he's handled the crash and its aftermath. In 2000, Hoffman received a letter from Tracey Stewart, Dixie Fraley and Debbie Ardan. The women said they appreciated Hoffman's “kindness and willingness to help concerning the crash site on your land. It is unfortunate that we have been connected though this tragedy. But, we also realize we could not have been connected to a better person throughout this ordeal.“ They said their lawyers, upon returning from South Dakota, couldn't get over “how nice the people were. I don't think Washington, D.C., lawyers are used to being treated with such respect and common decency.” The women thanked Hoffman for his cooperation. “Your generosity of not only your land, and time, but also your concern, is a blessing to us. We are forever grateful.”